GSoC project proposal: Audio CD support for Amarok

Nikolaj Hald Nielsen nhnfreespirit at gmail.com
Fri Mar 27 10:26:44 UTC 2009


I think this could make for a really cool project.

One thing to look into and include in the proposal is using KDE's
audiocd KIO slave to do the encoding, as that actually supports on the
fly encoding of tracks from a cd into one of several formats.

To try this, in a KDE session, put a cd into your drive and type
"audiocd://" in either dolphin or konqueror. That will give you a
virtual view of the cd. The files in the different directories
actually do not exists, but the ogg, flac and so on files are created
on the fly as you try to copy them somewhere else.

- Nikolaj

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Andreas Neufeld
<andreas.neufeld at some.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> now I have written a more formal proposal for the Audio CD project, here it is:
>
> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
> Enable Audio CD support in Amarok
> /////////////////////////////////
>
> I) INTRODUCTION
> At the moment Amarok isn't able to play or rip an audio cd, which are very basic
> operations probably many users miss in Amarok. However, Amarok is not a CD
> Ripper, so the possible options will need to be rather basic.
>
> II) PROJECT GOALS
> During this Google Summer of Code season I would add an audio cd collection to
> Amarok which would always contain the tracks of a detected audio cd. For playing
> this collection could just be added to the playlist like every other collection
> as well. Via right click the user could select “copy to collection” and then
> select the collection the cd should be ripped into. The options dialog should
> come up whenever the user decides to import a CD in order to allow easy change
> of settings.
>
> III) IMPLEMENTATION
> There already is Amarok code which allows to shift tracks between different
> collections, so the cd could be ripped somewhere on the system and then those
> Amarok tools can be used to add the cd to the selected destination, which means
> that for example cd ripping directly on a writeable removable device would be
> possible to the user
>
> In the dialog the user should be able to select the encoding method (FLAC, mp3,
> ogg, …) and some basic options which for mp3 would be whether ABR, CBR or VBR
> should be used, if it doesn't make the dialog look messy also stereo and quality
> mode.
>
> Standard libraries must be used to enable CDDB lookup of Track names (if
> possible) writing id3 Track information, recognizing audio cds. Amarok is no
> ripper, so enabling the user to type track names if CDDB cannot be used is not
> necessary.
>
> IV) TIMELINE
> Trinity Term will begin on 26th of April and I will take exams at the end of
> June. I am afraid that the term itself cannot be used for coding, but if
> accepted I will use the term to read intensively in the Amarok Source such that
> I can immediately afterwards start with the programming itself. Having worked
> through the Qt Tutorial this time will also be used to deepen my Qt knowledge,
> probably I could finish the dialog interface during term.
>
> After the exams I will be free until October, so there are 1.5 months of pure
> concentration on Amarok if the hand-in date is in mid of August.
>
> V) ABOUT ME
> Name: Andreas Neufeld
> Email: andreas.neufeld at some.ox.ac.uk
> I am 19 years old, was born in Moscow but live in Hamburg, Germany since 1992.
> Last year I finished my Abitur with mark 1,3 and Mathematics and Physics as
> Leistungskurse. At the moment I am studying Mathematics and Computer Science at
> the Oxford University. My motivation in applying for Google Summer of Code is to
> write software that will actually be used for the first time. As a linux user
> for years I would like to contribute to its development.
>
> During school times I dabbled in Object Oriented Programming and took part in
> some competitions including the 'Bundeswettbewerb Informatik' (federal
> competition in computer science) 2004/2005 and was awarded a second prize in
> second round. Together with my experiences from the Imperative Programming  and
> the Design and Analysis of Algorithms Course I think I am well prepared to
> finish the project.
>
> - Andreas
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